AngelList Recuriting Pro Tips

Love this article about how AL is disrupting hiring: http://fitfrnd.com/blog/2014/11/23/silicon-valleys-best-kept-secret-angel-list-slowly-disrupting-hiring-industry/

Here's an important pro tip!!! If you want to search for employees that either currently work or previously worked at a company, do not just type the company name in as a keyword! That makes the search restrictive (if you type two company names in, it'll look only for candidates that have worked at both those companies). Instead, use the "experience" drop-down to choose companies. That'll do an "OR" search instead of an "AND" search.

Here's a baller way to find hot companies on AngelList -- or if you're in recruiting mode, to find the ones that aren't as hot to recruit from. First, go to this advanced search page on AngelList: https://angel.co/companies

And then you can do things like this:

Aah bummer, AngelList changed its display, so it no longer states how many candidates are on AL. So, I'll no longer be able to report on its growth.

Huh, interesting, it looks like AngelList seeing 16.9% monthly growth in the available candidate pool. When I wrote this blog a month ago, there were 16,834 total candidates. Now, a month later, there are 19,680 total candidates.

At this growth rate, the candidate pool will more than double by the end of 2013. We'll see if it keeps up!

Keywords are EXACT!

I just realized that keyword searches are exact. For example, I get a different results set for "Head Product" and "Head of Product". Hopefully this will change soon, but for right now, it matters exactly how you phrase the keyword search.

VS.

I asked AL:

When I post 2 skillsets, what does that do? Do you only look for people that match both, to recommend? And what does "recommending" mean? Do you send an email to candidates that match both saying "new job just popped up!" type of thing? Is it geo bounded, so only people in NYC would get that?

To which my POC replied:

"Right now, the only time we promote companies to candidates is when the candidate signs up. There are 3 companies in the welcome email they get under under a header that says 'Jobs in New York'. Companies who's jobs are tagged with the same skills that the candidate tagged themselves with rank higher and are more likely to be in that email. You'll only ever be suggested to candidates who are in the location of your jobs and tagged with the same roles."

And then I asked:

OK so is it additive or restrictive. If I put "sales and marketing" and "advertising" do you restrict to people that have both, or do you show to people that have either?

And he replied:

"We'd show it to people who have either, although people with both get priority."

I asked AL:

"It looks like people that I "send message" to get put into the "yes list" -- is that right?

So am I then better off just hitting "Yes, Get Intro" vs. "Send Message," if the end result of "send message" is just to get an intro? What's the advantage to using "SendMessage"?

Also when I "send message" does the job seeker get an email with my message, or do they have to go to the AL website to see that I've sent a message?

My AngelList POC then replied with this pro-tip:

"Send message does put the candidate in the 'Yes' List. It's better than just clicking Yes because it tells the candidate you've taken the trouble to look through their profile and write a personal note to them. The response rate from candidates when the startup sends a message is significantly higher. Whether you use 'Send Message' or 'Yes, Get Intro', the candidate gets an email telling them you're interested. That email also has a summary of the company, in your case ShareThis, and a link to your profile.

"When you send a message, the message is added to the email we send the candidate notifying them that a startup wants to talk to them. If they reply, you'll see it in the intro email that has you and the candidate cc'ed. There's no way to see the messages you've sent that haven't been replied to, we still need to add that in."